Recycled Bottle Blazers

Schools in the UK can now dress their students in a uniform made entirely from old Coca-Cola bottles, which will help them meet their carbon footprint targets.

New advances in flaking, chipping and spinning plastic at a plant in Taiwan have made "blazers with bottle" commercially viable.

According to Mark Southcott, of the Knaresborough company School Colours, which has tailored the first order of the new material from Taiwan, the jackets and trousers look and feel like any manmade fibre clothing.

The uniform costs about £1 more than conventional ones. Many schools with more than 1,500 students have already placed orders.

Uniforms are just the first step, Southcott is working on extending the concept into sportswear.